Preface: "As a person's circumstances change, so it is likely that the arguments they follow and the places they follow them to will change." (Lankshear xiii)
This is true, not only in the terms of education, but also in life in general. Our circumstances and experiences shape our beliefs and arguments. For example, one's circumstances probably have shaped their thoughts on who should be our next president. My opinions on abortion changed when I had my first child. In the example of education, once a person's circumstances change, like their particular classroom or students, or new knowledge after a training, will alter a teacher's ideas and practices.
Ch.1: "An individual needs a minimum level of mastery in order to 'pass' as literate in public and keep intact his or her self-respect; as schools and literacy programmes become more effective in equipping their students with these skills, the effective threshold of acceptability will be raised accordingly" (Lankshear 11).
Being in a middle school, I see this. Students do not necessarily have to be at a mastery level in order to pass as a literate student. The problem that I have noticed is that a student may have been passed through the grades without anyone noticing a literacy issue.
Ch.2: "Moreover, promoting literacy means more than just ensuring that people can read and write on a particular day--the day of an exam or assessment" (Lankshear 29).
This is such an important quote for people to hear and grasp. We need to stop assuming that students being able to fill in a bubble sheet means they are prepared for life outside of school. Students being test-literate and students being life-literate are 2 different things. In order for our students to thrive in the outside world, we must promote literacy needed to thrive.
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